"[w]hat was any art but ... a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose." - Willa Cather, Song of the Lark

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Big Brother Wants YOU to...

Michael Gene Sullivan's adaptation of 1984 was brilliant. Instead of telling the story in a linear fashion and having to change the sets or the scene every ten minutes, the entire story is told through acted-out flashbacks during Winston's interrogation and torture. It's pretty true to the subplots and general spirit of Orwell's classic, which I haven't read since sophomore year in high school.

There was a Q & A with the actors afterwards, and the biggest thing the obviously left-leaning audience kept returning to was the similarity to the certain current political realities. But somehow I think the fact that the play itself didn't try to make any allusions to Guantanamo or the PATRIOT Act was more powerful, because the audience could make those connections on its own. Orwell's scenario is such a scary dive into the nature of power, surveillance, manipulation, and fear that anyone in any audience can somehow relate to it.

The one scene in the book that I've vividly and traumatically remembered is the one with the rats. And throughout the play, I kept thinking "Oh hey, they cut out that scene!" But oh no. It's kind of a crucial scene. It's there.

Ironically, I passed tons of posters on campus advertising the play and the tour dates, but I never stopped to read the details. I accidentally read about it in the free newspaper over some stranger's on the T yesterday! And ended up running into some people I knew there. Small world.

Afterwards, the honking cars and whoops from bars told me who won Game 6 of the ALCS.

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About Me

"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem.
But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." --E.B. White